May 1, 2011 Coats
Museum NewsGood roads, or the lack of, continued to be the hot topic in
The Harnett County News in 1919. The
editor of the paper once again pushed for better roads for the betterment of
the county. He quoted BionH. Butler of The News and Observer who said,“Harnett County has a wealth of road material
and should reap a rich harvest from the sale of gravel to other counties less
fortunate.”(The HarnettCounty NewsVol.1
No. 11, 1919)Questions—Why were good roads such a hot topic during this
time frame in Harnett County? Do you know where this wealth of road material
was of which Butler spoke?Did any
businessmen come forth and realize the value of gravel harvesting in Harnett?
Did the gravel harvesting have any effect on the rail systems?The editor of The
Harnett County News suggested that a gravel road built with proper drainage
would last a lifetime. He preferred gravel over cement and asphalt because of
expense, and he much preferred all roads be graveled rather than spending all
the road money on a few roads and leaving the others to become bogs.(The
Harnett County News Vol . 1 No. 11, 1919)Wonder if Dr. Lewis Fuquay from Coats owned a car in
1919?If so, was it a 1919 Ford that he
might have purchased for $450? Was it a 1919 Maxwell that had cost him $650?
Could he have afforded a 1919 Buick, Studebaker, or Oldsmobile at the cost o f
$1,250? We do know that The Harnett
County News (April 10, 1919) edition reported that the medical doctor had
been under Uncle Sam’s service since the outbreak of the hostilities, had
returned to his home in Coats after an honorable discharge and had reopened his
office for practice of medicine. Was he one of the 500,000 men drawn under the
Selective Service Act of May 18, 1917?Dr. Lewis Fuquay was born in 1892 and had moved to Coats in
1907 with his widowed mother. His younger brothers, Garner and Leon Fuquay, had
worked in a munitions plant in Danville, Virginia and financed Lewis’s medical
education. Do you recognize those names?Many miles back I wrote about a man named N.T. Patterson who
was a very progressive banker and businessman had moved to Coats in 1911. His
son, Dr. Bill Patterson, wrote a book entitled From theIsle of Skye to the
Isle of Maui.This Coats graduate
went on to become a very distinguished and honored doctor in Maui. In his book
he wrote about his Uncle Lewis Fuquay saying that Lewis had received a
commendation from President Woodrow Wilson after serving in WWI. He told that
Lewis had married a nurse and they had moved to New Mexico where he worked for
a mining company and took careof the
miners and their families.What would
life have been like in New Mexico in 1919? Patterson said that his Uncle Lewis
was a great baseball pitcher and continued to play baseball in New Mexico. Can
you picture baseball in New Mexico during that time frame? Do any of you know
Cecil Fuquay? Was he a good baseball player?Lewis is also Cecil’s uncle. Patterson continued that Dr. Fuquay returned to Coats with
his wife and three children to practice medicine. According to Patterson, Dr.
Fuquay had an excellent bedside manner and his patients loved him. Patterson
remembered being taken to Rex Hospital in Fuquay’s white Hupmobile to have a Baker’s cyst removed fromyoung Patterson’s knee . What colors were cars in 1919? Were there license plates on
the automobiles and ,if so, were they the same size and color every year? Go by
the Coats Museum to see 1918 and 1926 plates. Are any of you wondering what a
Baker’s cyst is –don’t know either and I also wondered why the doctor did not
remove the cyst in his office. Dr. Patterson told a story about Dr. Fuquay saving the life
of a drunk man who fell through a plate glass window in a town store. Some of
our older town folks told me in 2004 that he was thrown through the window and
had his jugular vein severed. He was quickly taken to Fuquay’s office where he
stopped the bleeding and repaired the cuts with hundreds of stitches. They
thought he was a miracle worker for saving the man’s life. Another story told
on Dr. Fuquay wasthat when someone
presumed deadwas brought to his
office,he wouldtake a long pin and poke it into the person
and, if there was no reaction , he would say, ”Yep, he’s dead.”Dr. Fuquay’s return to Coats may or may not have equaled the
excitement that occurred on March 26, 1919, when on Monday morning, Raleigh
bloodhounds were carried to Coats to trail parties who had broken into the
Coats Supply Company and the Walter Keene store. The hounds took up the trail
and bayed a white man (The Harnett County
News April2, 1919).Would you not like to know who the drunk man was and what
happened to the man who was bayed by the hound dogs?Read next week to see how automobiles and better roads affected
the lives of the people in Coats and the surrounding area.Many thanks to the large crowd who visited the museum on
Sunday for Dr. Bill Pauley ‘s reading and book signing of his novel, The Dream.